


Fork In The Road

by blueberryfallout



Series: Bone Deep [2]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Punisher (Comics)
Genre: F/M, Road Trips, as does that pitbull you know the one, cool diner stop waitress makes an appearance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-15
Updated: 2017-08-15
Packaged: 2018-09-08 18:47:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8856769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueberryfallout/pseuds/blueberryfallout
Summary: lol what the fuuuuck. i really will do anything to procrastinate on my finals, huh? i've been writing so much fic lately and i always wanted to continue that old punisher fic so here have this. not sure whether i'll continue it beyond this or not :)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> lol what the fuuuuck. i really will do anything to procrastinate on my finals, huh? i've been writing so much fic lately and i always wanted to continue that old punisher fic so here have this. not sure whether i'll continue it beyond this or not :)

“Frank, the law is there to help!” she tries for the tenth time, the fiftieth time, the hundredth time. He gives her that look she hates, the dead-eyed soldier stare that doesn’t leave her any room to dig her fingers in and find Frank, the one that erases everything and leaves the Punisher behind to clean up. 

They’re sitting in her car outside his most recent safehouse, his gear piled in the back seat; guns, mostly, and extra clothes, his toiletry kit, ammo, the picture of his family that he doesn’t know she knows about. Just thinking about getting caught with him in here makes her skin prickle.

He scratches at the scar the shuriken from a few months ago left, still watching her. There are bruises crawling across his face, from jaw to nose to temple in a thick diagonal line, his lip split, somehow doing nothing to detract from his looks. How dare he, she thinks, suddenly angry. How dare he make her feel like this, make her come unraveled when she prides herself on perfection, reducing her to a mess with just a stare and that fucking smirk, that crooked nose that shouldn’t charm her like it does. 

“Yeah? Where was the law when my kid was dying?” he grunts, turning his gaze away as she starts her car, pulls out of park. They’re going upstate, for just a few days, laying low. Entirely separate reasons, for once.

Karen’s been digging at a mayoral corruption case for the past couple weeks, pulling back layer after filthy layer of bribery, graft, the sweet-stink smell of rot filling her nose the whole time. Until she got caught in an office she shouldn’t have been in, and two hitmen showed up at her place. Would’ve been the end, if Frank hadn’t been there, hiding out for his own reasons. The Mob, again, sniffing hard at his trail. Just a few days, he said. Just to take the heat off. We’ll even rent a cabin, he’d said, smiling one of his rare, big smiles.

She blows out air through her nose, frustrated, turning the heat on just a shade too high because she knows it annoys him. He won’t say anything, but it annoys him. “I’m just saying, we could tell the cops I’m in trouble, and…” Even as she’s saying it she knows it’s stupid, knows that the cops are just as much in the mayor’s pockets as the hitmen, will turn her over for a couple grand and some praise, still sleeping like babies. They’re useless. It’s why Matt does what he does, Frank, even that guy in Harlem who’s been on the news recently. If she goes to the cops, she might as well giftwrap herself and sign off on her own funeral. “Fine.”  
His smirk tells her he knows he’s won, and she resists the urge to punch his big stupid face, choosing instead to focus on the road in front of her as they head for the edge of the city, the traffic gradually thinning, Karen already missing it. “This better be a really nice cabin, Frank.” He doesn’t say anything.  
++  
They stop for coffee at a diner halfway there, Frank still overly pleased with himself, flirting with the waitress who doesn’t seem to mind the bruises, probably used to worse. She’s in her sixties, grandmotherly, slips them both an extra slice of chicken pot pie with a wink and Karen reminds herself to leave a large tip. 

Soon as she’s gone, Karen turns her full attention to Frank, asking, “How are we going to afford this?” She makes better than she did at Matt and Foggy’s, but she’s not going to be rich any time soon, no matter how generous her boss is.

“I got money,” Frank says around a mouthful of chicken, not meeting her gaze.

“From where?” 

He shrugs one thick shoulder. “Places.” Meaning he took it from Mob guys, unless he’s started robbing innocent people and not telling her. Doubtful.

“Places,” she repeats, kind of smiling because she can’t help herself. This man, honestly. She gets a smirk back, and digs into her food before it gets cold.  
+  
She lets him pick the music for the second half of their journey, knowing he’s getting tired of Adele and indie love songs. She’s kind of wondering what he’s gonna pick, whether he’s the kind to be a stereotype and listen to metal or maybe he’ll surprise her and it’ll be dad rock. 

He takes forever picking the songs, scrolling painstakingly through her Spotify with his brow furrowed, acting like he’s ninety years older than her and not nine and perfectly capable of using a cell phone. At last he puts on a blues song, crackling through the speakers, so old that it couldn’t be cleanly recorded. Of course he listens to the blues, she thinks. His whole life has been the blues for a while now.

She catches herself humming along, soft, as they wind down long fields of farmland, past cows who watch them with uninterested, sleepy eyes. “Karen,” he murmurs after a few minutes of this, barely audible over the guitar twang.

“Mm?” 

“What did you want to be when you grew up?” 

“Uh.” She looks over to him; they _never_ talk about this kind of stuff, not unless one or both of them is drunk, don’t allow each other to see past shallow surface wounds. He gives her an encouraging nod, impatient, so she clears her throat and thinks for a second. “Well, I wanted to be a systems manager.” 

He coughs out a rough laugh, there and gone again, clearly taken by surprise. “ _What?_ ”

“I didn’t know what they were!” she defends, laughing with him, comfortable with making fun of the child she was. “I thought it sounded really adult and mature.” She never even came close to being one, not that she wanted to be once she found out the truth. 

“Jesus, Page,” he says, affectionate. 

“What about you?” she returns, pulling into the driveway of the cabin they’re renting and letting her car idle so she can turn to watch him.

He shrugs. “Been the same thing ever since I was a kid. I wanted to be a soldier.” She can picture Frank, younger, his nose unbroken, playing soldier in the streets with his friends, pretending to be Captain America like every little kid does at some point.

“You achieved your goal.” He nods, getting out of the car and into the bitter cold outside, biting under her clothes for skin, blowing her hair in all directions. For him, it’s just a matter of grabbing his bag from the back seat, but she has suitcases that she rolls in, accepting his usual, gentlemanly help.

They heave their bags over the threshold then stand in the doorway together, shivering, examining the cabin. It has a main living room, with a fireplace, a kitchen off that, the bathroom, and then the bedroom, with only one bed, which her inner teenage girl ‘he likes me’ side is kind of thrilled about. “Looks nice,” is all he has to say, dumping their bags where they stand and heading to start the fire. 

She checks cell service; nothing, of course, so instead she watches him while his back is turned, the broad lines of his shoulders, the hair at the back of his head where he sometimes misses when he’s shaving it off, the tense way he holds himself, always prepared. 

Shaking herself, she heads further into the cabin to look for books, or something else to use after she’s finished with this article. Because of course she’s printing it, threats and all, that’s _why_ she has to print it. Matt never got that, focused more on protecting her and his own Catholic angst than on Karen being able to make her own choices. Frank gets it. Frank would let her run wild through the city, keeping an eye on her the whole time.

Almost like having a pitbull, one particularly nasty perp had said, a longtime pimp being led off in handcuffs, one of their joint efforts. Karen peeled away his veneer of respectability, and Frank brought him in. 

It’s true, kind of. Frank sinks his teeth deep into whatever he’s chasing, rips them to shreds, and always returns to her. Thinking of him that way makes her feel sort of sick and ashamed, though, so she brushes it aside, going back to the living room where the fire is roaring, Frank crosslegged in front of it with a look on his face that’s as peaceful as he gets. 

She settles next to him, only their knees touching; neither of them are much for snuggling, or being stereotypically gooey in front of a fireplace. He does lean over to press a kiss to her forehead, arm around her shoulder for just a second, before settling back into silence. 

As the temperature rises her muscles begin to relax, Karen not realizing how tense she was until now, constantly looking over her shoulder for hitmen, for the glint of a gun in a crowd. She’ll go out, one day. If she stays with Frank, if she chases after every corruption and crime story that passes her desk. Not over some penny-ante thug of a mayor, though. Not worth it. For now, she stares into the flames, Frank a solid warmth at her side.


	2. huh

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well here's more. i guess. not sure where this sudden streak of inspiration is coming from, but enjoy lol and i also have more pearl parker coming up, so sneak peek to anyone who reads these :) please leave a comment if you like this cause i thrive off validation

“I need a favor.” She startles, looking up from the articles spread over her desk and into Frank’s eyes, the left one blackened.

It’s two in the morning, long past when everyone else went home, Karen so focused on her story that nothing else seemed to matter, not the fourth coffee slowly cooling near her hand, or the pitying stares she gets, as a young woman with no one to go home to. 

If only they knew, she thinks, hissing, “What are you _doing_ in here?” His dog, Ham, pads happily along next to him, sniffing with interest at her trashcan, the jacket she left draped over a chair. She’s exhausted, she realizes, watching Frank muzzily as he leans his hip against the edge of her desk, close enough to touch her hand. He doesn’t though. Of course. “I’m at _work_.” 

Work is supposed to be sacred, nothing of…whatever they are bleeding into it. A separate space. It’s not like she asks to go along on shootouts, though she’s been trapped in more than a few. He shrugs, taking a butterfly knife from his back pocket and flipping it through his fingers, not seeming to notice. She has a sudden glimpse of him in high school, face softer, hair in the curls she knows it turns into when it grows long enough. Probably wore a leather jacket, or at least, he does in the vision she’s creating, where he’s fiddling with the knife like he is now. 

“Karen,” he says after a moment, holding her gaze. Looking into his eyes, sometimes it’s like looking at a shark. Just after he kills, when there’s blood splattered over his chin and that _thing_ he became when his family died is awake. Right now, though, they’re warm, intense, a slow curl of heat shivering down her spine. 

“Uh, yep?” she says, sliding her next planned article under a folder, trying to be artful about it. This one is on corruption, her favorite, and if Frank finds out he’ll go there guns blazing and the trail will end there, Karen will never solve the mystery and that’s the most important _part_. She’s going to the very top with this one.

“I need a favor,” he repeats, so she gives him a look.

“You already practically live with me, if you want to move in just say so.” Joking, but he appears to give it actual thought for a couple seconds, tilting his head. The butterfly knife flashes in silvery patterns through the air between them, Karen’s gaze held there. 

Maybe he’s here to murder her? She thinks about that sometimes, about Frank above her, gun in his hand, doing it face to face out of respect for their relationship. Finding out about Wesley and realizing that Karen is just as immoral as the rest of them. She’d be just another tragedy in the life of Frank Castle. 

When she’s starting to get impatient, he finally says “Nah.” The fingers of his other hand tap against her wooden desk, thumping in random patterns. There’s blood on them, crusted in the nails, sunk deep. Once upon a time, that would’ve bothered her. Once upon a time, she hadn’t seen Frank literally drenched in blood, the aftermath of a fight in a building that soon became a slaughterhouse in more ways than one. “Need to go away for a bit. Can you take care of the dog?” The dog, like he’s theirs. Which, considering Karen had to be the one to get him his shots and papers, he kind of is.

“Yeah, of course. That’s all you had to ask me?” He grunts a no, so she waits, trying not to let her impatience show in her face. Frank is…Frank is whatever he is to her, something important anyway, but sometimes his taciturn silences drive her insane.  
Ham ambles over to lay his head in her lap, smiling a huge doggy grin, so she absently scratches his ears, the right one with a split in it from a fight before Frank took him away from the Irish. She’s tired enough to rest her forehead against Ham’s, kissing him; she’s always loved dogs, but her mom was allergic. “Who’s a good boy?” she mumbles, blinking the need to sleep out of her eyes, trying to make them feel less heavy. Doesn’t work. 

“Jesus, Page. Go to sleep.” 

She takes her gaze away from Ham’s adoring eyes and to Frank, who’s less adoring but just as loyal. “Huh?” 

He hides the knife away, shifting to face her more fully, pin her in place with his eyes. Sometimes, looking at him, she feels like someone’s slowly slipping a knife under her ribs, into the soft parts there, where she’s vulnerable. “You’ve been here for hours.” 

“How would you know that?” she asks, suspicious, knowing she hasn’t messaged him any time recently, hasn’t even left her office since eight. 

“The mayor sent some more guys for you.” It’s been weeks, and she’s so _close_ to exposing him, has the article typed up, all sources checked. All she has to do is survive, she thinks, and wonders what happened to the small-town girl who moved, starry eyed, to New York and thought she could escape everything that happened. 

“And?” 

“And you’re safe,” is all he says, so Karen is 100% sure there’s at least two bodies stuffed in a closet somewhere, slowly cooling. Would that have upset her once, before Fisk and Wesley and fearing every strange man who gets too close, searching for death in the faces of other people? Maybe. Karen’s not sure she really knew the person she was before all this, before everything in her got scraped away and made into who she is now.

“You’ve been stalking me,” she accuses, and he nods, shameless as always. “You could’ve just texted!” 

He shows his phone, shattered, the screen flickering in a rainbow of bright digital colors when he turns it on, black bleeding through the cracks like ink. “Sorry.” She huffs, annoyed with him but not really, more angry and scared that she escaped death today, _again_ , and it barely affects her anymore. What can she do? Freak out and cry every time she receives a death threat? She’d never get out of bed. “Go home,” he says, smirking when she bristles at the order. “C’mon, Page. You’re useless like this.”

She has to acquiesce; all she’s been doing for the last thirty minutes before he arrived was staring at her computer screen, too sleep-fuzzed and slow to figure out what she wanted to say. So she shuffles all her papers together, closing her laptop and sliding everything into her bag. “Fine, okay. But I’m getting Pad Thai before we go home.” She’s been craving it all day, as she subsisted off popcorn from the vending machine. In response he holds out a bag, exposing the logo of her favorite Thai restaurant. “How did you…” 

“S’ your favorite food. Lucky guess.” She has to stand and kiss him, grinning when he lets her, biting once, gentle, at her lower lip. She slides her hands to his hips, under his shirt, gripping the firm muscle there while he strokes down once, from her shoulders to her waist, then pulls away. Sometimes he lets himself be soft, when he’s not thinking about it or thinks she won’t notice. 

He tucks a strand of hair behind her ear as he shoves off the desk, Karen swaying back to give him room, and hands her the Pad Thai bag. She heaves her bag over her shoulder and follows him from her office, Ham padding behind them, sniffing briefly at whatever interests him but on the whole, obedient.

She shovels her food in her mouth and is done before they even leave the building, dumping the empty container in the trash outside. He waits, hands in his pockets, looking for all the world like a regular guy walking his girlfriend home from work. Except for the black eye. Walking next to him, close but not too close, they head on home.


	3. hambone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you wanna keep following this story you should probs subscribe to this one, it's where i'll update :)

“Karen. We’ve gotta get out of here.” She looks up from her coffee, surprised; she’s been sitting at this Starbucks all morning, typing up an article, not wanting to stay in the stuffy closeness of her office. She feels pretentious as hell, a millennial in a Starbucks with a laptop, but this place has Wifi. 

People stream by outside, faces protected by scarves, jostling each other, trying to avoid the bitter wind. Frank looks mildly out of place here, his lip split, _again_ , looming over her hot chocolate with its sadly melting marshmallows, entirely focused on her. Ham must be back at his safe house, cause Frank’s alone, just appeared in front of her like the stalking weirdo he is. She should, probably, be more concerned that he always knows where she is.

It’s been two weeks since she last saw him in person, two hectic, horrible weeks. The mayor was taken down with the help of Daredevil, which was…awkward. They’d stood together as the mayor was led away, cursing. Matt’s nose was bleeding, something he didn’t seem to notice although he kept sniffing, shuffling around like a kid about to be scolded.

He’d put on weight, and it looked good on him, the desperate guilt gone from his face as well. She’s still angry at him, still betrayed and annoyed that he couldn’t see her as anything except a damsel in distress, but she likes him anyway. It’s kind of hard not to. 

“Hey, Matt,” she’d started, fiddling with the ring she always wears, her grandmother’s, unsure whether using his real name was some huge breach of superhero protocol. Should she call him Daredevil even when no one’s around? 

“Karen,” he’d nodded. “Nice job.” 

She loves appreciation for hard work, so she’d smiled, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “Uh. Thanks.” There’s something different about him when he puts on the uniform, no more mild Matt Murdock. It’s hard to see the sweet, collected lawyer she knew him as.   
“How’s Frank?” She’d briefly panicked, wondering whether everyone knows, drawing a target on her back more than usual. “I can smell him on you,” Matt rushed to explain, wincing when she made a disgruntled sound. 

“You could have worded that better.” He’d shrugged, smiled, handsome even with blood dripping down his chin, and took off onto the rooftops with a soft goodbye. 

Now she locks eyes with Frank, swirling the whipped cream around in her drink, challenging, “Why?” She loves messing with Frank; he gets this little twitch to his jaw when he’s frustrated enough, and she hides her smile behind her drink, taking a long sip. It’s vile, but she needs the sugar. “Is the Mafia after us again?” _Again_. She can’t believe this is her life.

“No.” He’s ansty, eyes darting to the window, back to her face, to the innocuous barista surreptitiously texting at the counter. There’s something dark swimming behind his eyes, which never bodes well, so she gathers her stuff into her bag, carefully saving before closing her computer, mourning what should’ve been a peaceful afternoon. 

Frank stands when she does, crowding her, following so closely at her back that their jackets brush as they duck out of the shop and into biting cold. “Tell me what’s going on,” she demands while they swerve through the crowd, looping her arm through his so they don’t get separated. He accepts the touch, probably seeing it as necessary, and she privately revels in the flex of his biceps under her arm. 

“You remember the Irish?” How could she not; she still remembers pleading for Frank not to kill Schoonover, the dead look in his eyes, remembers coming to terms with it; the Irish started it all. 

“Yes,” she says as they duck into an alley, behind a dumpster, Frank pressed close so they share warmth, his hands solid on her hips. This close, she can see the flecks of blood dotting his cheek from an earlier kill, licking her thumb to wipe them away. He grimaces but takes it, keeping a lookout.

“Cooley’s nephew is in town,” is all Frank has to say. Because there’s no end of people who have blood feuds with Frank now, who come to New York gunning for vengeance on a man who doesn’t care. He’s killed their loved ones, he’ll kill them too, remorseless as a machine, the thought shivering down her spine. He looks down, a line appearing between his brows. “You okay?”   
But this is Frank, who almost died for his dog, who’s only ever killed people who spread destruction, who can pull out charm as easy as putting a hat on. Is Karen supposed to hate the man who’s put the bodies of her enemies at her feet?

So she smiles, softer than is normal for them, and answers, “Yeah. I’m fine.”   
++  
They manage to make it to Frank’s safehouse with only minor scuffles, one guy who gets close enough to grab Frank from behind, sending Karen to the ground as he pulls away from her. She’s too busy picking herself up to watch Frank fight him off, gets to her skinned knees as a gunshot rings out.

Moments later Frank comes strolling around the corner, staring at her with shark eyes, tucking his gun in his waistband. Karen would usually feel worse about this guy’s death, but it’s hard to feel bad for someone who was trying to kill her.

“Let’s go,” Frank orders, walking off without a backwards glance, and usually she’d argue with his rudeness, remind him she’s not some docile thing who’ll roll over at every command, but given the circumstances, she decides to hurry after him instead.

When they reach his place she sets up at what passes for the kitchen table, papers spread out, computer booting up as she scratches Ham’s head. Her hands have tiny bits of gravel in them, but this article is more important, she’s been rooting around searching for threads and the whole thing is about to come together. Solving the mystery is what she lives for, when satisfaction glows warm in her chest. 

This case isn’t about corruption or bribery, it’s on the disappearance of a minor city official who Karen’s almost sure is still alive, the truth just out of her reach. If she can ask enough _questions_ , peck away at people until they give up and talk, read through endless documents to find that tiny kernel that adds another piece, she’ll have it. 

“What’re you doing?” Frank grunts, coming back from taking Ham out to pee, bringing the smell of cold with him. 

“Article,” she mumbles, more focused on her papers then on him. 

“Jesus, Page. Did you even clean up?” 

“M’fine.” This guy who disappeared, he doesn’t have a real birth certificate, might as well not exist, and that’s _fascinating_. Maybe he’s an alien. Maybe Karen will discover another huge conspiracy that she can dig her nails into and expose.

Frank watches her for a moment before shrugging, wetting a paper towel in the sink and draping it over the chair nearest to her. “Take care of those when you’re done.”

She smiles as she types a couple words, knowing that’s his way of showing he cares, but not coddling like she’s broken because of a few scrapes. “I will!” she calls to him, hearing his answering grunt from the other room. Ham pants happily at her feet as she continues searching for the truth.


	4. Caretaking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i guess this is kind of like a story now? but with no plotline or anything i just get inspired sometimes

Frank has a delicate upper lip, unexpectedly vulnerable, the cupid’s bow of it. She traces over his mouth with one finger, careful, certain that the anesthesia will keep him under, allowing her to have this moment. 

The injuries are bad, could’ve been worse; broken ribs instead of fractured, a lost limb instead of a badly cut up one, and more. The anesthesia was Claire’s idea, to keep him from fidgeting, hurting himself all over again, and for once he agreed.

Now Karen keeps watch. She’s been wondering, since about thirty minutes after he went under, if she’s here because she’s the only one he trusts, and if so, how flattered she should feel about that. Possibly very, the little girl who loves fairytales says in her head. Possibly, she shouldn’t care, says bitter, older Karen. She chooses to take a little from both and reaches up to smooth the hair away from his forehead, if he had any. 

Instead, she just leaves her hand there like she’s taking his temperature, feeling the prickle of stubble under her palm, the flakes of old blood. It was a close call this time. Frank sometimes seems like a creature beyond humanity, untouchable, but underneath his shark eyes he’s still just a man. She wonders when the thought of having to live without him became borderline unbearable, a sucking wound in her chest where this man has come to reside.

When this…thing between them started, it was supposed to be meaningless, trysts during late night research binges or an excuse to burn energy off after patrol. Karen didn’t want anything more, not another person in her life holding her back. Now, all Ham’s papers are in her name, and Frank’s starting to sleep here more often than not, his imprint in the side of her bed, his toothbrush in a cup near the sink. What can she do? He slunk into her life and took it over without a plan, without meaning to. 

The minute he asked her to stay in that hospital room, she was done for. She could almost hate him for it, except now his eyes are opening and she’s stealing her hand back, leaving it innocently in her lap as he almost smiles, one side of his mouth turning up at the corners. His eyes flick over her face, to her collarbones, over her shoulder, checking corners like he constantly is, before he rasps, “Page.” 

“How’re you feeling?” Letting his head loll, Frank watches her from under his eyelashes, exhausted. He makes a face, like he doesn’t matter, rolling his eyes a bit. Frank, always so unconcerned with his body until it fails him completely, until he can’t force it to grind on a little longer.

“Doesn’t…hmph. Doesn’t matter. Kids are safe?” The kids he was taking back from their kidnapping dad, terrified little faces all over the news as they crawled out of the cellar he’d been keeping them in, running towards their mom. And Frank, for once taken unprepared by a booby trap, crawling away until Matt found him. Karen is suddenly, heartbreakingly fond of Frank, of the tense way he’s holding his shoulders right now, bracing himself for bad news.

“Yeah, Frank. Yeah. They’re fine.” 

“Good. Yeah, that’s…Good.” He yawns, dipping back under as he reaches for her. She takes his hand, bruised knuckles, cut skin, and holds tight.  
*  
*  
“Karen.” She doesn’t look up from her notes, waving a dismissive hand in his direction, biting the nails on the other one even though they’re so short it’s beginning to hurt, she blinks and she can’t remember when she last slept, when she last paid attention to anything that wasn’t this article, wasn’t threads unspooling in every direct so she can find what she needs. She licks at her lips, thirsty, but there’s yet another interview she has to read over again, combing for details. There’s a glass of water in front of her seconds later, Frank’s hand wrapped firmly around her upper arm. “Jesus, Karen. You’re a grown woman. I don’t want to force you to bed like a kid.” 

Trying to push him off is pointless, so Karen tears herself away, squinting up at him. He’s in pajamas, or what passes for him, sweats and a tank top, a gun tucked in the back of his waistband, she’s sure. There’s a fresh bruise on his sternum, ugly, a dark purple blossom crawling towards his throat. “I’m busy.” 

“You’ve been busy for the last two days.”

“You’re not the boss of me,” she snaps, surly, as he lets go of her arm.

“No, ma’am, I am not.” He’s grinning, surprisingly, when she glances at him, a rare thing. “But I _can_ suggest you take a break.” Swayed easily by him, as always, Karen saves and closes her laptop, shuffling her papers together as Ham pads over to join them, panting happily. 

Standing, she almost falls over, vision going gray at the edges as Frank reaches out a steadying hand, letting her lean on him. He passes her a granola bar, which she eats fast, ravenous, following him to her bedroom. Their bedroom, at this point. There are crumbs falling onto the carpet as she eats but she’s too tired to care, dizzy with it, focusing on Frank’s broad shoulders as he guides her downwards, pulls her sweater over her head until she’s left sprawled out in just a t-shirt and underwear, feeling his eyes on her, interested. 

“Too tired,” she grumbles, rolling onto her stomach as Frank pulls the blanket over her shoulders, and she wonders where this uncharacteristic gentleness is coming from as he sweeps a hand across the plane of her shoulders, those dark eyes nearly drilling a hole in her skull.

“Go to bed,” he orders, getting up and leaving the room with Ham, footsteps fading. Karen would argue, that she’s a grown woman, that she still has to finish the article, an expose on FDA corruption in delis all over the city that isn’t particularly juicy but is surprisingly full of depth. Her bed is soft though, and it smells like them together, apricot perfume and blood, comforting. Maybe just this once, it’s okay if she sleeps.


	5. Gloss

Karen is gloss, through and through. Frank isn’t gloss anymore, he was once but that’s gone now. 

He watches as she tucks a piece of hair behind her ear, the strands shimmering gold. She’s writing up a story, he knows, everything researched and checked twice. If Karen is anything, she’s thorough. 

She’s wearing his shirt, a little big on her, slipping from shoulder to shoulder and going to her thighs. She pulls one long leg to her chest and rests her chin on it, frowning. He wonders what’s frustrating her as he idly sharpens his knives. There’s no real need right now, but it’s important to keep in perfect condition. 

Karen taps her pen at her bottom lip, distracting. Frank’s not sure how he should feel about her, why he feels the way he does about her. After Maria and the kids, he didn’t think anything would matter again. 

There’s a part of Frank, deep in his chest, or maybe in the wounded parts of his brain, that went cold when they died. Those parts are never coming back; the softness, the empathy, all washed away by the constant, tearing rage. Makes things easier, Frank thinks. Some things, anyway. 

Karen is…Karen is another thing. Not something he ever expected. Lying in that hospital bed, waiting for her to leave, her steady gaze on him. She made him smile for the first time in weeks. Makes him become someone he thought he could never be again. Not healed. Never healed. But not gone entirely, either. 

It’s her focus, he’s pretty sure. It’s hard to stop Karen once she wants something, with that focus on a target. He’s watched corrupt politicians and businesses fall before her pen, watched her stare down the barrel of guns pointed at her with perfect calm. There’s not a lot of women out there like her. Not a lot of people like her, if he’s honest.

As he watches, Karen grins, privately satisfied, and jots something down. In the middle of his grimy kitchen, with Ham sitting contently at her feet, Karen shines. There’s a glow about her, like no matter how far down in the muck she sinks, she’s still a new penny. 

When they’re together, Frank sometimes feels like the glow is sinking into him, under his skin, cleaning him out. Makes his aim better, makes his vision clear, lessens the ugliness that threatens to overwhelm. What does Frank have to offer her? A shitty apartment and the likelihood she’ll die young? At least she likes his dog.

Frank’s never deserved either of the women in his life; Maria was gloss too, the way her smile made his heart stutter in his chest, her endless patience. Karen is different, sharper, more inclined to snap a warning than offer a hand. It still works. 

Frank’s so caught up in admiring her his hand slips on the knife, blood welling up in seconds. Karen’s head turns, eyebrows furrowing with concern. “You’re hurt!” 

“S’a scratch,” he dismisses, sucking the blood from the wound. It barely even stings. 

She rolls her eyes, uncurling from the chair to walk to him, taking his hand between hers before letting it drop, gesturing to the kitchen. “Come on, up, go clean it out.” He goes obediently under her watchful eye, jots down a mental note that he’s running out of hand soap.

When he goes back to the living room she’s moved to the couch where he was, all her papers spread out before her, already lost in work again. “Gonna keep me company, Page?” he asks, settling next to her. She hands him a bandage without speaking, writing down a few words. He examines them over her shoulder, reads _Civilian endangerment_ and _Gross disobedience of health laws_. That’s Karen, always sticking up for the little people. 

“Do you want something?” she asks without much interest, though he’s not hurt by it. He understands obsession. 

_I never want you to leave me_ , he thinks in his head. “Nah,” he says aloud. She just smiles.   
+  
+  
+  
Frank isn’t a big man, but it feels like he is, his presence overwhelming but no deliberately so. Karen’s known men like that, hated men like that, who focused more on flooding the room with their personality than having any kind of substance.

With Frank, he just. Is. Always here, looming large, but sometimes Karen thinks it’s just her who’s so affected, that she orbits around him so closely he’s the biggest thing in her vision. Until, of course, she gets distracted by a story and doesn’t see him for five days. Then she remembers that journalism will always come first in her life; even someone like Frank can’t steal her away entirely from a good rumor. 

Right now, he’s small even to her, curled up fast asleep among her sheets. His mouth parts, breath whistling out through his nose. Karen’s rarely the first to wake first, but she’s been sick lately and her sleep schedule is all wonky. 

Weak light streams from the curtained window over Karen’s bed, strips of sun illuminating his face, his crooked nose and brutal cheekbones. The blankets have slipped below his shoulders, exposing skin that’s striped with scars, with stories that he’ll never tell Karen. Half the fun of him is the mystery, is constantly peeling back, she’s sure. 

He looks almost peaceful like this, even with the marks on his skin screaming violence. Karen reaches out a hand to touch one scar, a puckered mark on his left pectoral, hesitates. He wakes so easily, and sleeps so rarely. She’s grateful he can sleep near her, though she’s not sure why he stays. 

Frank is a knife slipping through the city, surgically removing what’s killing it. He could live like a robot forever, she knows, with only Ham for company. He’s a hero, in his own way. In Karen’s eyes, sometimes. Karen is ordinary, she knows. What does she offer him?

She pulls her hand back, into her chest, but it’s too late. His eyes flutter open, something almost like a smile touching his mouth. Usually, he’s gone before she wakes. Usually, she doesn’t get to see him yawn and stretch, the muscles in his chest pulling appealingly. “You good, sugar?” He’s softer like this, reaching over the edge of the bed to scratch Ham’s head, wincing as it pulls as his most recent set of stitches.

Karen could pretend, if she wanted to, that he’s a normal man, about to head off to a job where people won’t shoot at him. She doesn’t pretend, having always preferred reality even when it’s painful. Frank is who he is, and there’s no changing that.

Their legs brush under the sheets, Karen hooking her foot around his ankle, not ready for him to leave. “I was gonna make pancakes,” she tells him as he rolls over to hold her gaze with black shark eyes; there’s something warm enough in them that she doesn’t run. He reaches out and curls his hand over her hip, warmer than her. She smiles under this brief hint of attention, tucks away the little girl in her that’s constantly affection starved. 

“Pancakes sound good,” he offers, rolling out of bed and sitting up to pull on his jeans as Karen leers at his shoulders, glad she’s unnoticed. _I love you_ , she thinks, snuggling under the covers for a few more minutes sleep. Breakfast can wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> love these two, was going through some unfinished ideas on my phone and there was stuff for this pairing :)


End file.
